Re: Non-free package licenses and replacements

[Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>]

Andreas Metzler <ametzler@downhill.at.eu.org> writes:
> Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> wrote:
> [...]
>> [libmotif3, libmotif-dev]
>> Replaced for most applications by lesstif, which is already in main.

> Iirc lesstif only provides limited compatibiliy (Only motif1?),
> however I am currently unable support this with facts.

Lesstif only implements Motif 1 and certain portions of Motif 2, so there
may indeed be packages that don't work with Lesstif.  However, in
practice, nearly all free software that uses Motif works fine with Lesstif
and the portions of the API that are not yet implemented are not commonly
used.

There may be more of an issue with non-free software; I don't know.  But I
think Lesstif at least qualifies well enough to be added as a
recommendation in the table, and it might be good for someone to research
what packages Debian users care about that actually won't work with
Lesstif since one may be surprised by how few there actually are.

(The Motif widget set in general appears to be dying, at least as seen
from my corner of the world, and this issue seems to be growing
increasingly less important over time.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>